Warzone
by Kayley Fisher
Summary: Will Vandom slammed herself up against the downed tree. Crawling in between the branches, she cautiously peeked out, looking for any sign of the enemy. Seeing no signs of movement, Will slid down to the ground and with shaking fingers worked to reload her gun. Will tried to focus on the bulky, awkward weapon rather than on the red dripping down her trouser leg...


Will Vandom slammed herself up against the downed tree. Crawling in between the branches, she cautiously peeked out, looking for any sign of the enemy. Seeing no signs of movement, Will slid down to the ground and with shaking fingers worked to reload her gun.

Will tried to focus on the bulky, awkward weapon rather than on the red dripping down her trouser leg. She tried to convince herself that it didn't hurt, but the reality was that it did. Nowhere near as much as watching one of her closest and youngest friends fall to a barrage of shots, but it did hurt. She wondered if she should take the time to try and tend to the wound, but she knew that could be deadly.

She was on her own and being ruthlessly hunted. Will had known from the beginning that she was outclassed. The enemy had taken out both of her comrades. There was some small satisfaction in knowing that Taranee had taken out one of the enemy, Cornelia, before she had herself been taken out. Will regretted her friend's sacrifice even as she rejoiced in the minor triumph over one of the bad guys. If she had been faster, she could have saved the younger girl.

But saving Taranee had not happened. Saving Irma had not happened. Will had no idea where the other enemy was. She knew only that if even by some miracle she survived the next half-hour, she was in for a hellish time from Peter Cook.

Sighing, she cautiously stood up. Her breath caught in her throat. There, not ten feet away, stood the enemy. The girl had her back turned and was scanning the surrounding undergrowth. Will carefully lifted her gun and sighted. The shot came with just a poof of air, but that was enough sound to cause the enemy to dive frantically to the ground, struggling to bring her own weapon to bear.

"Oh no, you don't!" Will cried as she leapt to her feet and following her target, firing her weapon until the chamber was empty. Finally the girl stopped moving. Will stood panting in shock. She had actually done it. She'd won!

Grinning hugely, she walked over to her downed adversary and reached out a hand. "You okay, Hay-lin?"

Accepting the help up, Hay-lin grunted. "Yeah, I'm fine. Say, are those paintballs supposed to sting like that? They hit with a wallop, don't they?"

"I'm glad you said that. I thought maybe it was just me. I swear I'll have a bruise on my leg where Cornelia nailed me."

Hay-lin looked down at her shirtfront. "What a mess."

The shirt was covered in blue paint. The exercise had pitted Hay-lin and Cornelia against Will, Taranee and Irma.

When Hay-lin had introduced Cornelia and the others to paintball last summer, Cornelia (despite the mess) had found it so fun that she bought herself an entire arsenal of paintball weaponry. Today was a lovely sunny day, so Peter - Taranee's older brother and fellow paintball fanatic - had suggested they head down to the forest by their house and play war. Nobody had thought of a good reason not too, so they happily accepted.

Hay-lin dragged her hand across her shirt, trying to scrape off as much of the paint as possible. "Did you have to empty your gun into me? This stuff will never come out."

"Sorry, Hay-lin. I guess I was just so surprised at catching you off guard that I forgot to stop shooting."

Looking at her paint-covered hand, Hay-lin reached over and wiped it off onto Will's shirt. "Hey! Cut it out!" Will laughed, raising her gun to Hay-lin's head.

Hay-lin knew it was empty, but held up her hands in mock surrender anyway. "Okay, don't shoot me! I have a family of Hersey bars waiting for me at home!"

Will laughed and lowered her weapon. Thinking a moment, she said, "Come on, let's head back. I'm getting hungry."

"Fine by me. Oh by the way - was that your idea to send Irma out in the open? It would have worked if Corny and I had been where you thought we were."

"No, it wasn't me. It was probably Taranee. I was cut off from them when Irma made that move. I thought it was pretty dumb myself."

"Well, yeah, but if Cornelia and I had been in those rocks at the left of the field, Irma could have held our attention while you and Taranee snuck around. Irma was out of range of the guns, so she would have been safe. It's just too bad we were in the trees, not by the rocks."

"Yeah, too bad." Will note of sarcasm drew a chuckle from her paint-covered friend. Soon, they came through the last screen of bushes out onto the patio and found their friends a few yards away. Their friends were seated at the portable camping table munching away on chicken salad sandwiches.

As Will and Hay-lin headed to the table, Cornelia looked up and, taking in their appearance, said, "I don't believe it!"

Irma turned and seeing Hay-lin covered in blue, let out a victorious whoop. "You won? _You won!_ Fantastic!"

Taranee grinned and surreptitiously snatched a brownie from Irma's plate. "Way to go, Will!"

Will couldn't help strutting up to the table. "It was all skill, ladies! All skill."

Will looked at Cornelia with one neat splatter of blue paint directly over her heart and Taranee with red paint on her shoulder and in her hair. Will winced. _That must have hurt._

But when she examined Irma , she couldn't help but laugh out loud. Irma was covered head to toe in red paint. In a couple of places, there were tell-all splotches of blue paint. Pointing at one of them, Will asked, "What's this?"

Taranee looked up from her sandwich and said dryly. "Mercy killing. She was suffering so I put an end to it."

Laughing, Will pulled the platter of sandwiches toward herself and Hay-lin and sat down. "Where's Peter?"

"I'm right here, Will."

Will swung around and felt her jaw drop. There before her, dressed head-to-toe in camouflage, looking like something straight out of a warzone, was Peter. On his face were quite intimidating war-paints and in his hands was a gun that reminded Will of an old-time bazooka. Strapped to his back was a machine gun similar to the one everyone else was carrying, and on his leg was a holstered pistol. Peter racked the gun and, with an evil grin, said, "Cornelia gave me the keys to her armory. Did I mention the winner gets to go one on one with me?"

Will gulped hard and blinked. She had never seen a predatory gleam like that in all her time as a Guardian. It was a thing of pure malice. She took a moment to play the mouse to Peter's cat then, with an evil grin of her own, racked her own gun and said, "Taranee, prepare to become an only child!"


End file.
